


Until the Jars Fill with Honey

by Vivacious



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Bees, M/M, Retirementlock, Sickfic, Sweet but slightly angsty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-19
Updated: 2014-04-19
Packaged: 2018-01-20 00:27:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1489972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vivacious/pseuds/Vivacious
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John hopes that the spring will never arrive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Until the Jars Fill with Honey

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Kunnes purkit täyttyvät hunajasta](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1366702) by [Vivacious](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vivacious/pseuds/Vivacious). 



> This is my first time translating one of my Sherlock-fics into English. It was fun, just like writing this one was. Retirement!lock is a bit like a drug, it's just utterly addicting to write and to read. Anyways... this is not Brit-picked. I'd be delighted to get comments and kudos. Hopefully you enjoy reading this.

“Now is the right time, isn’t it, John?” Sherlock asks and wipes his glasses with the corner of his sleeve. John puts the newspaper he’s reading on top of Sherlock’s blanket. The question hurts more and more each time.

“No,” John mutters with a voice that has turned husky. “The bees are still hibernating.”

Sherlock pushes the glasses back on his nose. “Is that so? But it’s almost spring outside.”

“Almost”, John admits. The morning sun is dangerously warm already; it reflects from Sherlock’s eyeglasses and forms bright spots to the room’s white walls. John wants to stay in the soft darkness of the winter. Soon there will only be sharp icicles dropping from the rooftops and sending shivers down his spine.

Sherlock scans John’s face and _knows._ Obviously.

“Anything interesting?” he finally asks. That kind of gentleness many wouldn’t expect to get from him. John turns back to his paper and turns the page.

“A jewelry theft in Belgravia,” John answers while Sherlock makes himself more comfortable by adjusting the pillows behind his back.

“Tell me about it.”

John tells him.

*

“ _And moving on to the weather! Milligan, what kind of weather can we expect to get this weekend?” “Well, Bob, the Friday afternoon should be sunny all around the country. But on Friday night there’ll be frost…”_

John squeezes the remote control a bit tighter and sighs from relief when the weather broadcast promises sleet for Saturday. He turns the TV off and carries the teacups to the sink. One of them is still full. It’s ridiculous how absent-minded he has become. But that’s what aging does to some people.

 _While others remain as sharp as a razor,_ he thinks and a little smile finds its way to his lips. It must be all the sudokus and crosswords that Sherlock has started to fill. Perhaps John should try them too. On the other hand, Sherlock has always been so quick-witted that John thinks he’s just getting a bit slower, a bit closer to the rest of the people in that aspect. John imagines the reaction his thought would get and decides to mischievously bring it up on the next day.

*

Sherlock coughs so violently that John is scared his lungs will come out of his mouth. John squeezes the hand that’s been connected to an IV tightly through the fits. His own is shaking.

There’s water flowing from Sherlock’s eyes, but after a while his breathing becomes steadier.

“Disgusting,” Sherlock sighs and spits blood and mucus into a tissue. “Absolutely useless and utterly disgusting.”

John nods. “Unfair,” he says and Sherlock lets out a choked laugh.

“It’s something that can be expected. The east wind gets us all in the end.”

“But not yet.”

Sherlock turns his fingers and entwines them with John’s. Then he trails their joined hands to the pulse that’s fluttering on his neck.

“Of course not. Don’t be absurd.”

*

_The sun shines from the clear sky while they carry moving boxes inside. John puts down one that’s full of books and turns his face up towards the sun._

_“Hurry up John! I want to start an experiment in the bath tub, but I can’t find our sugar tongs,” Sherlock yells from the veranda. It’s takes a moment for the words to sink in._

_“Wait a minute. Sherlock! We agreed that you would keep your experiments out from the bathroom. That’s the only reason I dared to leave the wall-to-wall carpet there.”_

_“Oh where do you get these ideas into your funny little brains?”_

_“And besides, we don’t even have sugar tongs,” John continues despite Sherlock’s melodramatics and then opens his coat. The warmth caresses his skin._

_“John,” Sherlock moans. The door snaps shut and soon there are fingers digging between John’s ribs._

_“Hey!”_

_Sherlock raises his brows. “You deserved that.”_

_John shakes his head. “There’s no way I deserve a terror like you,” he answers. “You can’t even let a person enjoy the sunlight.”_

_“Spring comes every year, John. We have better things to do than watch the seasons change.”_

_“Like what, Mr. Pensioner?” John asks with a hint of smile in his voice, and Sherlock wrinkles his nose, like he’s unsure whether or not he should feel offended._

_“Well, if you can’t come up with the sugar tongs, then there are the bees.”_

_“The_ what _?”_

_“The most important workers of this place. There are beehives in the garden and it won’t be long until we can start gathering some honey.”_

*

It is spring and the first insects buzz sleepily in the air. John’s chest feels tight. He takes a later than usual bus to the hospital.

Sherlock is eating lunch or more like swirling his fork in his mashed potatoes when John arrives. The eyes that match the winter sky narrow thoughtfully as John steps into the room.

“You’re late.”

“An excellent deduction, detective,” John says.

“You are late because there is…”

“Because I went to buy glass jars,” John interrupts Sherlock, who wrinkles his eyebrows.

“Excuse me?”

John digs five different sized glass jars out of his bag and along with them some package labels. He drops them all into Sherlock’s lap.

“You can label these. It’s not fair that I have to take care of your bloody creatures while you’re just lying here,” he announces with a long-suffering voice. “Besides, I don’t even know what kind of honey it is. You have been playing with everything in the garden way too much for me to keep up.”

A hint of a grin appears on Sherlock’s lips, or perhaps it’s just the sunlight playing on his face. Anyway it makes John smile too.

Sherlock starts labeling the jars and so _until it’s spring_ changes into _until the jars fill with honey_.

*

The spring and the early summer seem to fly away. Visit by visit there are more streaks of grey in Sherlock’s hair and the rusty red stripes don’t disappear from the white tissues. John’s hip aches because of the warmth. He misses winter, but the summer is too strong and people are too weak.

*

“Isn’t it the time already?” Sherlock asks and stares at the food in front of him nauseously.

“No,” John says. His denials are starting to get weary, but Sherlock’s curls are still soft beneath his fingers and the frosty winter still lives in his eyes. _Wait a bit longer, please, for me._

Sherlock coughs and keeps on waiting.

*

John takes off the white beekeeper’s headdress and blames the work done during the heat of a summer day for the moistness of his face. Both the beehives and their residents are doing fine and there are no reasons left to drag out the inevitable.

*

“Sherlock.”

“John,” comes the quiet answer, and oh how he cherishes that voice. John sits on the side of the bed holding a spoon and the smallest of the honey jars.

“I wish you were home,” he whispers as Sherlock leans his head against his shoulder.

“You’ll be fine,” Sherlock says and nods towards the honey.

John opens the cap. It’s time to lose against the summer.


End file.
